My wife and I (newlyweds!) recently watched the entire first season of The Witcher on Netflix. If y'all ain't watched it yet, beware: here there be spoilers.

While my wife and I are fans of high fantasy, neither of us knew much about the story or what to expect. The first few episodes did seem humorous on the surface, largely because of our lack of prior engagement with the characters or universe. We also were dismayed by the random nudity which taints the purity of the show, and confused by the non-chronological nature of the narrative.

Still, I want to discuss something else about The Witcher: Destiny.

From the outset, many characters of the show speak of Destiny as that which should have a capital D. Destiny is spoken of reverently by magic-users and laypeople alike (well, except for Queen Calanthe. She's got a beef with Destiny.) I reckon you could call Princess Cirilla Destiny's Child. (Y’all better get used to puns ‘round these parts.)

While The Witcher personifies destiny, the term is typically defined as a fate or an event which cannot be changed or avoided. Essentially, what happens is out of your control; life in all its facets is inescapable and…inevitable.

Destiny is the poetic, archaic form of causal determinism, the concept that since all of reality is governed by immutable physical laws, every action taken is merely an effect of the Big Bang, thereby making free will moot. This overarching theme of the magical, monstrous misadventures of Geralt of Rivia and company raises the age-old question: How can choice matter in a world controlled by destiny?

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Determinism elucidates it thusly:

"It is hard to see how, if the state of the world 1,000 years ago fixes everything I do during my life, I can meaningfully say that I am a free agent...After all, I have neither the power to change the laws of nature, nor to change the past! So in what sense can I attribute freedom of choice to myself?"

To make matters more murky, magic use in the world of The Witcher is described as "controlling chaos." Is chaos predetermined, or is it unpredictable? If it is not predictable, how is it controlled to produce magic? Does The Witcher's "chaos" interact with its Destiny? The magical—or supernatural—elements of Destiny seems to indicate a connection to The Witcher's system of magic. These worldbuilding questions are ostensibly answered in the source material, but alas...I know not.

All of these considerations of an inescapable destiny flies in the face of storytelling itself. The cornerstone of narrative, especially in the modern tradition of the West, is choice. Stories are often vehicles for protagonists to make choices, suffer consequences, learn painful lessons, and ultimately grow from their experiences. Or, if the tale is cautionary, this lesson is given to another character or even the audience. Even slice-of-life stories with little plot still possess at their core an element of personal choice—of free will. The Witcher, bound by its nature as a story, wants to have its cake and eat it too. (This is not an indictment on the artists and craftsmen who labored to create the fun show, but rather an observation of the logical implications of the narrative’s worldview.)

Take, for example, characters taking choices and enduring their consequences:

S1E1: Stregobor and Renfri challenge Geralt to take a side, but he refuses to "choose between two evils." At the episode's climax, Geralt stops Renfri from hurting the townsfolk, saving the life of a young girl. Geralt learns that "not choosing" is still a choice.
S1E5: Geralt uses his last wish from the djinn to save Yennefer.
S1E6: His choice has further fallout when she learns of it and leaves him after saving the dragons.
S1E8: Yennefer decides to risk her life in the fight against Nilfegaard.

Other times, some "choices" appear to be fore-ordained because of how nicely they dovetail with Destiny. Let's take a look at a few examples of Destiny at work in The Witcher:

S1E1: Stegobor admits his homicidal war against a prophecy, but this prediction turns out to be self-fulfilling.
S1E4: At Pavetta's betrothal banquet, Queen Calanthe outright opposes the idea of destiny (via the Law of Surprise), even when the druid Mousesack entreats her to submit to it. This choice is subverted when Pavetta's powers overwhelm everyone. Or was is Destiny at work?
S1E1-8: The entire narrative of the first season is built around uniting Geralt with Cirilla, as she is "his destiny." Even when Calanthe tries to pass of a different child as Cirilla, a door mysteriously opens for Geralt to observe the real Cirilla and discover the deception. Destiny or deus-ex-machina?

On the one hand, characters have arcs and change according to their actions and those around them. On the other, certain choices are often foiled by Destiny. This oft-mentioned, immutable force even transcends time in the series, a feeling amplified by its non-chronological sequencing. In The Witcher, characters have choices, but only within destiny's limitations. Some will point to this essay and say I'm overanalyzing—as a work of narrative fiction, especially one as speculative as high fantasy, The Witcher's "destiny" is merely a plot device and trapping of the genre to lend it gravitas and a historical feel, not to comment on the nature of reality as viewers understand it.

Now, do you believe that? Or were you predetermined to?

I will readily admit there are many things I have no control over. One's parents, sex, ethnicity, genetics, and place of birth (etc.) are not up to debate—they are causally antecedent to one's own existence. Because of this, the nature vs. nurture debate continues, along with a host of other implications about how much choice people actually have in a world as predictable as ours.

No matter how often naturalist scientists try to claim that free will is an illusion, I find the idea rather shallow. Just because I lack the ability to alter physics does not mean my physical and moral choices are illusory. In fact, if free will does not exist, then no person is accountable for his actions, no matter how heinous—it ain't his fault, it was destined to happen because of his genetics, his brain chemistry, or from events long past. Where is justice in a world like that?

Even those who lack a Biblical worldview such as mine will find the idea of causal determinism problematic, if not wholly untenable:

"If we shake loose from the tendency to see the past as special, when it comes to the relationships of determination, it may prove possible to think of a deterministic world as one in which each part bears a determining—or partial-determining—relation to other parts, but in which no particular part has a special, privileged determining role that undercuts the others." - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
“Philosophical determinism argues that physical laws precisely predict the future. For quantum particles, though, the law is unpredictability. So if a creature made and carried out decisions through the flow of electrically charged particles (such as the signals within or between neurons), this level of uncertainty would make it awfully difficult to argue their future can be precisely pre-determined.” - Kimberly Anne Clinch of Northwestern University’s Helix Magazine

This ultimately comes down to a question of metaphysics rather than Newtonian or even quantum physics. Tomes have been written about determinism and the related theological debates of Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, and the role of Divine providence. Analytic philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig has this to say on the matter:

"What is critical to free will is not the ability to choose differently in identical circumstances but rather not being caused to do something by causes other than oneself....We are not causally determined to make all the choices we make; rather, many choices are up to us and are therefore free choices. We are held accountable for such choices because they are not the result of random brain events but are undertaken for reasons which we weigh and act upon." - William Lane Craig

There's the key word: reason. Man has volition, not just the illusion of it. Geralt did not choose to be abandoned by his mother, but he did choose to both kill and save many lives. Yennefer did not choose to be born a hunchback, but she did choose to irrevocably give up her ability to have children. The Witcher breathes Destiny interrupted by hiccups of free will.

While there certainly are some things we don't have a choice in, we also don't have the choice to not have a choice. Geralt of Rivia learned in Episode 1 that not choosing is still a choice. Spiritual and moral neutrality do not exist. That is one of the most important elements of our lives: what will we choose? Who will we marry, and who shall we worship? Choose wisely.

What did you think of The Witcher? What do you want to see in season 2? Let me know in the comments!

Destiny vs. Choice in Netflix's The Witcher